Cavalier
by butterflydarlin
Summary: Post-battle pillow talk of sorts between vampire siblings.
1. Chapter 1

Standard disclaimers apply. I'm just here playing with others' toys.

* * *

"You always have done a lot of sitting and staring when you're worried, Nora."

It's nearing daybreak, she knows, and she should think about resting. She hasn't used coffins for anything but transport in years, one of the perks of the Authority and its underground fortresses, so though Pam made some offer about "guest coffins," sounding bored, Nora was glad of Eric's alternative involving well-hidden actual rooms; despite the proper bedroom with a proper bed, though, all she's brought herself to do so far is undress to a camisole and sit cross-legged on the floor like a child. They left the others hours ago (the fairy that Eric was so protective of got hauled off by her brother, Pam and her progeny are no doubt fucking nonstop, they last saw Bill's redhead running to lock herself in one of the Fangtasia bathroom stalls, a bloody tear running down her cheek) and she can only guess what Eric's been doing since they arrived at this – what is it? Some fortified property of his, she supposes, she didn't really ask.

He's left her alone awhile, but leaving things alone has never been his style.

She thinks about giving some snappy retort – it wouldn't be unheard of – but nothing comes to her. She rolls her eyes, though. It's just like him to be so casual.

"You ought to go to sleep soon," he continues, standing over her with his arms folded. "Or did you intend to stay up and brood so long that you get the bleeds all over the Persian carpet?"

"You don't care about the carpet," she retorts.

"Not much," Eric says, and she can hear the smile in his voice. Not a particularly sincere one, but enough of one. "But Pam picked it out, and she can get tetchy about her decorating."

"I'll be sure to avoid wrecking it," Nora mutters.

"So you're doing that, then," he presses. "Purposefully losing sleep over something you can't immediately fix."

"How would you know what I'm losing sleep over?" she snaps. "Or that I mean to lose sleep at all?"

It's his turn to roll his eyes now. "Another of your habits, _min lillasyster_," he declares. "After the sitting and staring comes the mildly self-destructive behavior. Or have you changed your ways so much that I wouldn't recognize them?"

What Nora hears is _have you changed your ways so much that I wouldn't recognize them again_, and she folds her arms petulantly on account of it, again not saying anything. She knows it's bratty behavior; she doesn't care in the slightest.

"Fine," Eric shrugs, and before she can protest he's bent down, picked her up, carried her to bed, tucked her in, and climbed in beside her. She's not about to edge away; that, she figures, would be _too _childish, and there's a part of her that knows he's right. Even if she can't fathom sleeping with everything that needs done, she ought to, at least for a little while.

Still, though, she's allowed a bit of attitude about it. "Bully," she whispers, turning on her side to stare at him.

"If we're going to be any help preventing an apocalypse, we'll have to rest occasionally," he says.

"Did it ever occur to you that perhaps I'm simply not tired?" she asks, though she's fairly certain her voice is correcting that to _I simply can't bring myself to sleep _and she doesn't care enough to try to hide it.

"Of course you're tired," he counters, raising an eyebrow at her in that part-disapproving, part-knowing way that only he can. It's a big brother expression, she supposes. "After massacring an impressively large portion of a government, anyone would be tired."

"There you go again," she says before she can stop herself. "So fucking cavalier."

"It's better than –"

He has the presence of mind, at least, to realize that's too much pushing and stop before he dissects her mood any further. There are things about her that will always be a mystery to him, but he does know that, while she analyzes and overanalyzes situations regularly, she doesn't sit well when analyzed herself. If she wants to talk about it, she'll bring it up.

"I'm sure the accommodations are nothing as fancy as what you're used to," he says instead, reaching for her hand under the silk sheets. "But they're tolerable?" The question is self-parodying, playful, but it's the kind of question that's allowed to be.

"Decent enough," she replies, going just as playfully snooty for a moment. "They'll do for now."

"I figured you'd prefer them to a slumber party with Pam and the kids," he chuckles. His eyes are sparkling now, in a way she hasn't seen in ages.

"Gracious, yes," she exclaims, and instinctually, she snuggles closer and leans her forehead against his chest. "When have I ever been one for slumber parties?"

"You seemed to have had a few with Salome," he muses, not sure if it's something he can get away with bringing up but curious to find out. He means it as – well, not _innocently_, but tolerantly as he can.

Nora's fangs pop, and she leans to nip at his shoulder. It could be playful, it could be a warning; it's probably both to some degree. "Don't," she says simply. Well, that answers that.

"It won't be much of a party anyway, between Jessica going on and Pam and Tara going at it," Eric continues, blasé as ever.

"I should think she's allowed to go on," she exclaims, eyes impossibly wide. There are many things she can be just as blasé about (the other women discovering and acting on their passion for each other, for example, seems as normal as nightfall to her) but that's hardly one of them. "Her father was reborn of the blood, crazed and intending to lead a holy war."

"You'd have talked her through it?" he retorts. "Offered a shoulder to cry on, a listening ear."

"Well, maybe not," she mutters sheepishly. They both know that while she has many gifts, genuine sympathy isn't one of them that's easily expressed; it's not that she doesn't feel it, she just has difficulties showing it, particularly with those she barely knows, and despite Jessica's on-off time at the Authority, she still very much falls into that category. "I wouldn't write it off, but –"

"But you'd start giving technical explanations of what the situation possibly construed, and it wouldn't be comforting so much as terrifying, and we'd be back to the start," he finishes, smirking. He means it with love, of course he does; that his sister prefers (sometimes twistable) fact over (often messy) emotion is one of the things he treasures about her, but to make sure she knows that, he wraps his arms around her and kisses her, and it's rough enough that it doesn't seem like a pity kiss, but gentle enough that it doesn't seem like a non sequitur.

"I'll allow a bit of time before I go into it, yes," Nora amends. Well, someone will have to sort out the possibilities of what they're dealing with, and she _is_ the likeliest candidate.

"I've missed this," Eric says suddenly. Now that's a non sequitur, but it's been decades since they were together for more than a night or two, and not even the last weeks truly count.

"What, me?" she asks, giggling. "That's a bit sentimental for you, brother."

"Perhaps," he shrugs. "How long has it been since I held you as day broke?"

"At least a hundred years," she murmurs. "Closer to two, I'd think. Some French foxhole, if I remember, with me shirking my duties for a day or two, you running free as ever."

"A bit of running free might have done you good," he points out. "But it was never your style."

"No," she agrees. "If my wanderlust ever threatened to get out of control, I had your stories to appease me." Eyes suddenly shining, she presses a kiss to his cheek, brings her arm over his waist. "You did have wonderful stories, you know."

"A treasured compliment, coming from the queen of stories herself," he teases. "I still have a few, though they don't have the same happily debauched endings, I'm afraid."

"I don't see how that can be if they're to do with that bar of yours," she counters.

"Pam's bar, mostly," he corrects. "At least of late, given my other adventures."

"Are those nice stories?" Nora asks, and it's one of the times she sounds the most like a little sister that she can, all innocent and adoring. "The ones I don't already know."

"For another time," Eric whispers. "You'll laugh, but the big one's a love story of sorts, and not exactly a fairytale."

"Fairytales aren't fairytales," she shoots back. "The proper ones end horribly, you know that."

"Then I suppose it counts," he declares. "It's certainly a tale with fairies." She perks right up, and he has to bring her back down, shaking his head. "It's too long a story for right now, _älskling_, and you shouldn't get so excited at bedtime." He's playing with her, and she pouts at it, but she nods all the same.

"Promise me, then," she exclaims. "Some night soon, you'll share?"

"I'll share whatever you want me to," he assures. "Now, though, we rest while we still can."

"And tomorrow night, we start to dig ourselves out of the hole I've made," she murmurs.

"_We _start to dig," he agrees. "The family, together."

* * *

_min lillasyster_; "my little sister"  
_älskling_; "sweetheart" etc.


	2. Chapter 2

Standard disclaimers.

* * *

"She meant more to you than you said," Eric murmurs, running a hand through Nora's hair. He suspects he shouldn't broach the subject, but "shouldn't" doesn't really enter into his vocabulary.

This is starting to become ritual, their closeness once the others have disappeared or gone to sleep; there's more proper intimacy than they've really ever had, of all kinds, but they've settled into it without hesitation. They rarely say as much, but considering the state of their world it does both of them good.

"Brush it," she commands petulantly, shaking her head. When he moves to look at her, eyebrow raised in something like disbelief, she pouts at him, knowing full well it's manipulative and not much caring. "If you expect me to talk about Salome, I expect to be pampered."

"I've told you my embarrassing love story," he laughs pointedly.

"You've always been less private than I," she retorts. "You _adore_ sharing when the audience suits you." She softens her tone a bit, though that's another kind of manipulation. "Please? Brush my hair, and I'll throw in scandalous details for you."

"I'd have been expecting them anyway," he teases, but he reaches for a hairbrush gamely.

Satisfied, Nora turns around so he can follow her orders and tries to think of how to begin. In a way, it's odd to think she's gone decades and centuries without saying any of this, but then, it's not so odd at all – she and Eric have always had their secrets, and given that Salome was really the only person she talked to about anything intimate, it makes a sort of sense.

"I loved her a bit from meeting her, I think," she says tentatively. Beginning at the true beginning. "Proper hero worship in its way."

"At first," he prompts, raking the brush over her scalp. He knows how she expects him to listen and participate; some things never change.

"Yes and no," Nora sighs, somewhere between wistful and amused. "You might have noticed how charismatic she was. That didn't wear thin over time."

Eric nods. "I could see that in your eyes." That, the adoration: there's a note of doubt, of course, a _but I didn't know if it was just the blood_, but he doesn't say it. He's not sure which is better after everything.

"We weren't always lovers," she continues. "For years, she was my best friend and nothing more. I trusted her utterly." After a solemn pause, she adds, "As I trusted no one outside our family. It's why I first seduced her."

"Seducing the famed seductress," he chuckles, not without a certain hint of pride. "_Det __ä__r min syster_."

"I hold no illusions that it wasn't part of her plan," she clarifies. "_Me_ seducing _her_ meant I walked willingly down the path. She simply laid it before me."

Another pause takes hold, long enough of one that he thinks to prompt, "And?"

"And for a time, it was simple," she declares. "We were as one, together in our beds, after a time together in our purpose."

"Walking willingly down the path," he repeats quietly. It's starting to make a modicum of sense.

"Yes," she says. "I would have followed her anywhere. Sure, she was with Roman for true, but we were no secret. I can't imagine how we could have been."

"You truly loved her, didn't you?" he realizes.

"In a way I had thought foreign to me," she whispers. "Sometimes so deeply it was alarming, and she was many things, not all of them good, but I think sometimes that she loved me too. At least as much as she could."

"She just loved her god more," he concludes – not bitterly, not cruelly, just resignedly. "_Jag __ä__r verkligen ledsen, k__ä__ra_."

"Didn't know I had it in me, did you?" she smiles, all falsely blithe. It's enough to make his heart break, but instead, he keeps brushing, gentler and gentler. "The unflinching analyst, swept off her feet. The expert liar, fed so many lies she began to believe them."

"_Min syster_ –"

"Oh, but I promised you scandals, didn't I?" she interrupts, her giggles sounding more sincere now. Better to try and change the subject some, she thinks.

"If you'd rather not," he begins. He knows she is not one to go divulging, and he's worried this is pushing her too far, or that it will. He will always worry when he can see her ricocheting between emotional peaks like this.

"I promised," Nora repeats, almost stubbornly.

"Will it cheer you?" Eric asks.

She nods eagerly – this is remembering happier times – and murmurs, wide-eyed, "Please? Ask me anything."

"Did she really let you dominate her?" he offers. This much he's genuinely curious about.

"_Let_ me?" she laughs. "It wasn't quite so simple as granting permission to take her. But I could hold my own against her, I had my fair share of victories." Her smile grows wicked; she lets her head fall back dreamily. "Granted, she wasn't nearly as kinky as I can be, but she was open to play when I got it in my head."

He nods thoughtfully. "A surprise masochist?" he suggests.

"Oh, yes," she beams. "At least she could pretend. And she didn't turn it around on me, not properly – some games are only for you, brother, you know that – but she liked to make me follow orders. To lie perfectly still, just as she liked, while she feasted on me until I couldn't see straight. Or –"

Suddenly, the excitement she'd been working up vanishes, and she seems to wilt; he sets the brush down and wraps arms loosely around her shoulders, frowning. "I've made you sad," he murmurs.

"I imagine I'm going to be sad for some time," she counters, with all the blunt and bittersweet hurt of one who can't ignore what ails them. "Love-blindness is meant to do that, isn't it?"

"Whether or not you want it to," he agrees, burying his face in her brushed-to-shining hair.

"I'm a sick sort of tragedy, aren't I," she halfway-says, halfway-asks. "A proper one, the little girl from the provinces who falls into the company of the most dangerous beauty in history and leads the modern world to the brink of destruction on account of the way she smiles."

"_J__ag älskar dig, min syster_," he declares, if just to stop the tremors in her voice. "_Oavsett vad, jag älskar dig_." He pulls her close against him, presses a kiss to the join of her throat. "The destruction can be abated, you know. We will see to it."

"Not rightly the point," she mutters, but she doesn't squirm away. "I suppose the combination of heartbreak, betrayal, and crushing guilt makes me especially dramatic, and for that I apologize."

"_Min söta_, I need no more acts of contrition," Eric chides softly. "Actions are louder, aren't they?"

As if to test this theory, Nora closes her eyes and turns to kiss him, almost desperately; he knows better than to argue it, and this is more a help to her, his words fall hollow after a time. He wraps arms around her, she moves to straddle his hips, and they make out like children until they're too tired to anymore.

"You're the only one left in this world that I love," she whispers, finally collapsing against him.

"Family is the only thing that lasts," he replies, and they settle back to hold each other as long as they can manage. It's the only thing either of them can think to do.

* * *

_det __ä__r min syster_; "that's my sister"  
_j__ag __ä__r verkligen ledsen, k__ä__ra_; "I'm very sorry, dear"  
_m__in syster_; "my sister"  
_j__ag älskar dig__; _"I love you"  
_o__avsett vad_; "regardless"  
_m__in söta_; "my sweet"


End file.
